by Carolyn Jo n e s

We have discussed thei n h e rent failure of thecapitalist economic systemand how unions shouldrespond to the impact of theinevitable cyclical re c e s s i o non jobs and services.

To d a y’s debate turns to thekey issues of employment rightsand trade union freedoms.

Will the debate and strategythat follows, be robust enough todefend workers? Issues includeimproving and ex t e n d i n gredundancy payments and thenational minimum wage;compensation for forced short-time working; calls for theimplementation of the agencyw o r kers directive and amendingour laws to protect workers inBritain from the impact ofdumping posted workers ontoour unregulated labour market.

All good stuff. Similarly,ending bogus self-e m p l o y m e n tand the practice of blacklistingas well as improving theresources and powers given toenforcement agencies are alldemands to be supported.

So why is there such a senseof deflation?

The answer lies in both the

tone and substance. Against thebackdrop of workers forg i n gahead with unofficial strike s ,spontaneous occupations andunlawful solidarity action, themotions sound timid – morereminiscent of Oliver Tw i s t ’ s‘Please Sir, can I have somemore?’ than of Marx’s ‘Wo r ke r sof the World Unite’ .

Such timidity reflects adefeatist acceptance that thepresent economic and politicalsystem is as good as it gets.

The current economic crisisand political vacuum – with thep r oximity of a general election –present ideal opportunities tochallenge the system.

Basing our analysis on asimple reading of the motions istoo pessimistic. Wo r kers areunder attack and, at theminimum, need their unions tofight for their jobs or decentredundancy pay.

There is the beginnings of awider rejection of anti-unionlaws. While one motion evengoes as far as ‘congratulating’w o r kers taking direct action suchas occupations to save jobs theP OA are once again rattlingcages by calling for streetdemonstrations and selectivebreaking of the anti-trade union

laws. The disputes at Vestas, thepower stations ( a b o v e ), Vi s t e o nand Linamar show a militancyand creativity that canencourage further resistance.

But I can’t help feeling that ap r e-election opportunity toimprove our framework ofemployment rights and tradeunion freedoms is being lost.

A leadership with a sense ofhistory and of destiny would takethe fact that when last the TUCcame to Liverpool in 1906 – itwas the year the Trade DisputesAct was introduced after worke r swon the right to strike and tot a ke solidarity action – and useit to challenge the laws thatprevent workers in Britain todayfrom taking industrial action insupport of others in struggle orfor political aims.

The 1848 movement for thePeople’s Charter was a massstruggle for working classrepresentation and democraticrights led by the trade unions.

T h u r s d a y’s debates on thecontemporary People’s Charterand on improved politicalrepresentation can return us tosomething of the spirit of theChartists of 1848.Carolyn Jones is the CommunistParty trade union co-o r d i n a t o r

Communists at the TUC Wednesday 16 September 2009

Repeal anti-union lawsu n i t y

N o 2 E Uby Brian Denny

The No2EU: Yes toDemocracy coalition alertedvoters to the dangers of thecentralisation of power toEU institutions and served asa wake up call to the labourm o v e m e n t .

Uncritical support from unionhierarchies for anti-d e m o c r a t i cEU treaties and neoliberal EUdirectives has long been used topromote the EU project.

Prior to the euro elections, adeeply unpopular EU wasmatched by Labour’s declinewith the government embroiledin two unpopular wars,corruption scandals and adeepening capitalist crisis.

Two events in December 2008exposed the undemocratic, anti-w o r ker direction of the EU tospur an electoral challenge – theLindsey oil refinery dispute andthe decision by an EU summit toignore the Irish rejection of theLisbon Treaty and re-run ther e f e r e n d u m .

It was clear the Labour votewould collapse. In Euroelections up to 60 per cent votefor parties that they would nototherwise do so.

Unless something was done,the Lisbon Treaty would be givena free ride and fascists wouldstep in unchallenged to ex p l o i tthe volatile political mix.

Britain would have rejectedthe Lisbon Treaty if Labour hadkept its 2005 manifestocommitment to hold areferendum. French and Dutchvoters had already rejected theoriginal constitution and theIrish later rejected ther e p a c kaged Lisbon Tr e a t y.

continued on back page

u n i t y TUC Communist Party daily

by Graham Steve n s o n

A hundred thousand Unitebus workers looked forwardto two promises in Labour’ s1997 manifesto that wouldhave re s t o red lost benefits.One was to end thecompetitive system that hasundermined standards byabolishing on-s t re e tcompetition.

It took three years to bring atheoretical approach onto thestatute book; but the powersneeded by local councils weredulled by Blair’s personalintervention. It took anothereight years for the LocalTransport Act 2008, to finallyenable local authorities toreclaim powers to organise localbus transport. We’ve beenwaiting for a year now, lobbyingon what the practical regulationsand statutory guidance will say.These are mechanisms that arecrucial to the way in which anew system of quality contractsapplied to specified singlecontractors in defined areas, asopposed to the free for all thatnow applies (outside of London).

C u r r e n t l y, it appears that therewill be no requirement oncompanies to specify anyminimum employmentconditions for new and futureemployees, nor a specificationfor minimum pension provision.It is claimed that it would be

contrary to competition rules onprocurement directives for anauthority to lay down suchstandards, a contradiction ofearlier assurances given at thepolitical level. Even theguidance on labour standardsare not forthcoming; althoughquality service criteria on thecleanliness of buses is!

A competitive tenderingregime permitting thecontinuation of a race to thebottom on wages and pensionsseems to be planned, albeit withinitial protection for transferreds t a f f. A potentially enormousadvance is slipping away.

B u s w o r kers have beenpatiently waiting on a review ofthe regulations that govern localbus drivers’ hours of work –promised in a 1999 White Pa p e r.These were set as far back as1968, when conducters collectedfares not drivers; roads were lesscongested; breaks were morenumerous and canteen facilitiesb e t t e r. Ludicrously, it is stillperfectly legal to set a 16 hourday for a bus driver. Mostunionised drivers have areasonable control of theirworking day, but many are stillpressured to drive too longwithout rest.

Unite has long sought an 8-hour driving day, in a 10-hourduty; more importantly, we donot think that the industry norm(from the regulations) of a spell

of 5 hours 30 minutes (whichcan be stretched by ruthlessschedulers claiming trafficconditions) is reasonable and wewant a cut by one hour. A reviewof the hours’ rules would havegiven us a chance to make thechanges we need to modernisethe regulations.

The review began at thebeginning of the year but theconsultation process lingeredand the expected parliamentarytimetable now does not lookf l exible enough to enablelegislation. TUC delegates willbe familiar with the bureaucraticpractice of allowing some thingsto slip out the time-table. We l lbus workers are angry that theyhave been pushed to the bottomof the pile by the government –TWICE.

Even the Office of Fa i rTrading has referred the localbus market to the CompetitionCommission for furtherinvestigation. The OFT says thatlimited competition in local busm a r ket arises from monopoly.What planet are these peopleon?! We always said thatprivatisation would lead toprivate monopoly but that atleast, before, we had publicmonopoly and the state couldensure public good came fromthat. Is this the thin end of thewedge to enable a newgovernment to wind the clockback completely?

B u s w o r kers aren’t going tot a ke any of this lying down.A l r e a d y, in FirstGroup aroundhalf of the local subsidiarycompanies employing about10,000 workers are piling oneafter the other into a buildingwave of disputes across Britain.The company had made anational edict that a ZERO%pay pause will apply this year,using the recession as anexcuse, despite the company’ sprofits soaring and dividendsrising by 15% every year.A l r e a d y, Aberdeen, Yo r k s h i r e ,Manchester and Essex are indispute, many more will follow.

London busworkers are angry

at massive pay drops and arecalling for the unique form oftendered commercialisationapplying in the capital to endtheir “race to the bottom”. Fe dup with bus companies cuttingpay and conditions to wincontracts, with them alsorefusing to talk to Unite about away forward, London’s busdrivers aim to end the hugedisparity in wages, which canvary by as much as £10,000 ayear between companies byseeking central pay barg a i n i n gmechanism as a means tostreamline standards and treatw o r kers fairly. A prospect ex i s t sof a London-wide ballot of all ofour 28,000 members across allcompanies in the capital.

Going even beyond that, Uniteis now looking at the wholeproblem of low pay and longhours across the entire industry.The legacy of neglect of the twobig legal changes that NewLabour has failed to delivercould well be that co-o r d i n a t e daction right across the industrymight begin in the next fewyears.

Watch this space! Unite’s national organiser fortransport Graham Stevensonwrites in his personal capacity

Bus workers angered

Ruling Class Offensive, TheChallenge for the Left andLabour Movement. £2 atparty stall, £2.50 inc. p&p fromCPB Ruskin House 23 CoombeRoad Croydon CR02 1BDw w w. c o m m u n i s t - p a r t y. o rg . u k

TUC Communist Party daily u n i t y

E ve n t s

T U C / War on Want ChangeWe Can Believe In – UKStyle John Hilary War onWant. 12:45pm Suites 3/4,J u r y’s Inn, Liverpool L3Refreshments

Unite Johnnie Don’t Wa l ke rOut on Scotland’s Wo r ke r s :Defending Jobs at DiageoLen McCluskey Unite, Diageow o r kers; HarryDonaldsonGMB, Des Browne MP forKilmarnock; Jim Murphy,Secretary of State for Scotland.Chair: Lorraine DavidsonTimes journalist. 12:45pmRoom 11c, BT ConventionCentre. Refreshments and ad r a m .

CWU Solidarity with Po s t a lWo r kers – Fighting forpublic services and jobsBilly Hayes CWU, Dave Wa r dC W U, Brendan Barber TUC.Chair: Jane Loftus CWU5.30pm Room 12, BTConvention CentreRefreshments provided

PCS The Fu t u re of publicservices after the nex te l e c t i o nMark Serwotka PCS, JohnMcDonnell MP and others p e a kers tbc. Chair: Janice Godrich PCS5:30pm National Suite, At l a n t i cTo w e r, Thistle Hotel, ChapelStreet, Liverpool L3 9RE.Re f r e s h m e n t s .

S o l i d a ri t yPa l e s t i n eby Pauline Fr a s e r

Last December the Israelislaunched an onslaught ofunparalleled ferocity againstthe people of Gaza, killing1,450 and injuring 5,000.The illegal blockade,denying food, fuel, medicalsupplies, and buildingmaterials continues.

Gaza and the West Bank areoccupied territories. Attacking apeople under occupation is awar crime. Israel has beencondemned at the UN. Despitethis, Histadrut, the Israeli unionfederation, on January 13, 2009,b a c ked the attack on Gaza.

Israel has the fourth mostpowerful armed forces in theworld, including a stockpile of

more than 200 nuclear weapons.Histadrut has turned truth on itshead by portraying Israel as thevictim and the brutal invasionas a war between equals.

The FBU motion condemnsHistadrut’s statement andinstructs the General Council tocarry out a review of the TUC’srelations with Histadrut.

The USA finances the Israelimilitary to the tune of $60mn aweek while pumping $400bn ayear into the Israeli economy.Our government has so far failedto condemn the Israeli attack onGaza. Motion 76 calls on theBritish government to do so, toend all arms trading with Israeland to suspend the EU- I s r a e lAssociation Agreement, whichallows for the influx of Israeliagricultural produce intoEuropean supermarke t s .

Motion 76 calls on the Britishgovernment to ban all imports of

goods from illegal Israelisettlements in the OccupiedTerritories and also calls fortrade unionists and consumersto boycott such goods. It seeksto encourage campaigns ofdisinvestment from companiesassociated with the occupation.

Vote for Motion 76unamended and make sure yourunion has no investments whichare supporting the occupation,the building of the apartheidwall and the illegal settlements,and the whole apparatus ofrepression against thePalestinians. Affiliate toPalestine Solidarity Campaign.

There are the usual voicesu rging ‘caution’, or attempting tomisrepresent the situation. Insolidarity with Palestine, standf i r m .Pauline Fraser is a member ofthe Communist Party exe c u t i v ec o m m i t t e e

S o l i d a ri t yH o n d u r a sThe overthrow of HondurasP resident Zelaya marks thereturn of the military toLatin American politics andt h reatens the democratictransformation that hasb rought hope to millions ofthe poorest from Bolivia toE c u a d o r.

Zelaya directly attacke dpoverty in the poorest and mostunequal country in theAmericas after Haiti. He raisedthe minimum wage by 60 percent, bought low cost oil fromVenezuela, secured cheapgeneric medicines from Cubaand took Honduras into then i n e-nation Bolivarian Allianceof the Americas, ALBA.

These actions angered thec o u n t r y’s elite – whose ex t r e m ewealth had depended on closelinks with the USA and thec o u n t r y’s use as a military basefor operations elsewhere inCentral American under Re a g a nand Bush.

US involvement in the coup isdifficult to quantify. It isu n l i kely that President Obamahad direct knowledge. On theother hand, there can be littledoubt that there was knowledgeon the ground and that thoseinvolved would have been partyto US plans for covert actiondrawn up under Bush.

The National Endowment forDemocracy had beenbankrolling the ‘DemocraticCivil Union of Honduras’ with$50 million a year, the coupgenerals are US militarygraduates and the planecarrying the kidnappedPresident was refuelled at theUS military base of Soto Cano.

Most Latin Americancountries broke off diplomaticrelations. The OAS called fortrade sanctions. All memberstates of the Non-A l i g n e dMovement have demandedaction. The US eventuallycondemned the coup but did notbreak off diplomatic relationsand continued to supply its$30m aid until early September.It has not responded to OA S

demands for trade sanctions –70 per cent of Honduran tradeis with the US.

Meanwhile Micheletti’smilitary regime has arrestedunion leaders during the Au g u s tgeneral strike and uses the armyto disperse the continuing massdemonstrations. AmnestyInternational last monthdetailed the use of torture anddeaths in custody.

Key demands are for theBritish government to imposetrade sanctions and to use itsinfluence with the USgovernment to do the same. Norecognition must be given to theMicheletti regime’s pretence ofholding elections.

Support is needed for thedemocratic movement inHonduras and to its unions.

Until the scope of the UnitedStates military and intelligenceestablishment to continueprogrammes of covertsubversion is challenged,democratic progress is at riskeverywhere in Latin America.

u n i t y TUC Communist Party daily

O P I N I O NCampaign for decent jobs

by Joanne Steve n s o n

Unions need to be more imaginative in dealing withemployment. Where is the sense that there is anunderstanding of what actually faces ordinary people in therecession? Too much of the TUC order paper creates thea g e-old sense of competitive unionism.

How are unions relevant to the young unemployed? The neglect of the concerns of young people maybe explains why

so few are organised? Most youth jobs are hardly above welfarebenefits. The reality for most young people is that it is the option ofworkfare, or a McJob. This is the ‘choice’ for most young people,women, migrants, and ethnic minorities.

Capitalism deals with crisis by shifting much of the workforce intothis kind of work. Premium rates of pay, sickness, holiday,redundancy and disciplinary rights are becoming sub-standard.

This has been one stimulus for recent tide of strike activity,notably in the private sector. Wider sections of the org a n i s e dworkforce are beginning to grasp what it is like to work yet live onthe edge.

Unions need to start reconnecting with communities. The miningand mill towns are long gone. Steel city and car city is no more. ButStar City is alive and well … and Merry Hill Shopping Centre,B l u e w a t e r, Meadowhall, and Westfield!

Entire sectors need to be targeted for unionisation. Unions arestrong in airports – are they as strong in the massive retail worldthat’s surrounds them? Unions are strong in container ports – arethey rooted in the wharehousing world that surround them?

We must make sure we do not endlessly repeat past mistake s .Looking back on the Depression of the 1930s, an observer notedthat unions then believed that it was impossible to organise youthand women. Official opinion was that the lack of a tradition“comparable with that prevalent in the mining, railway and cottonindustries, is a serious obstacle … Time alone will not overcomethis …”

Unions have been hiding for 20-odd years. No matter how scary ort e r r i fying it is, unions must start connecting now. It’s the only waythey will recruit. It’s the only way to stop the membership decline.Unions face terminal decline unless they begin organising youth.

Union leaders need to get out of their suits and into the realworld. We need edgy and straight-talking people who will shout fromthe roof-tops that it ain’t good enough! The first step to making sucha massive shift in outlook would to show that unions care aboutunemployment and crap work.

Unions need to establish open and broad-based co-o r d i n a t i n gcommittees to link union districts, trades councils, communitybodies, social and religious organisations, youth workers, and others,to campaign for Decent Work for All.

Such a campaign could also link with the Peoples’ Charter. TheYoung Communists propose that the labour movement lead a Marchfor Decent Jobs; a stream of converging columns across the country,recruiting mainly young people, linking with communities.

If unions sponsored something like this, then it might even be thefirst step for young people to think that someone, somewhere doescare. Joanne Stevenson is Young Communist League general secretary

continued from front pageTo project an alternative, an

electoral alliance was fashionedof pro- w o r ker political forcesincluding the RMT, theCommunist Pa r t y, the SocialistParty and the Alliance of GreenSocialism. For the first time in ac e n t u r y, a trade union enteredthe electoral arena aside fromthe Labour Pa r t y, which theunions had formed to representthe political interest of workers.

It was clear that defence ofw o r kers rights, progressivelegislation and institutions andB r i t a i n’s right to decide its ownd e s t i n y, free of EU interference,was the key issue before thelabour movement.

As Bob Crow said: “if weaimed for sovereignty in our ownunions, taking responsibility forour own rulebooks and assertingour freedom of action free fromstate interference in such thingsas union elections and collectiveb a rgaining, it was no great leapshould we want to protect theseprinciples when applied to thestate of Britain as a whole”.

Successive RMT AGMs hadcommitted the union tocampaigning against the‘l i b e r a l i s a t i o n’ of European railnetworks carried out under theEU directive 91/440 thatdemands the splitting of railoperations from infrastructureand fragments networks to allowthe development of private railm o n o p o l i e s .

This failed and ex p e n s i v eprivatisation model is now beingrolled out across Europe,despite research which showsthat privatisation producesservices that are less efficientand with an inferior record ofhealth and safety. No2EU

warned that the same failedapproach threatened our publicservices including the NHS.

Four judgments by theEuropean Court of Justice –Laval, Viking, Ruffert andL u xe m b o u rg give new powers toemployers to bring in contractl a b o u r.

The employers exploit EUrules on “free movement” todrive down wages and exc l u d eo rganise labour in order tomaintain their profits.

No2EU was an attempt toprovide an EU-critical leftalternative to the far-right fascistBNP and the unfettered-free-m a r ket policies of UKIP. TheBNP won two seats after acomplete collapse of Labour’svote despite having a lower votein both the North West andYorkshire than in 2004, indeedtheir total vote was down.

N o 2 E U: Yes to Democracycampaigns showed the need fora socialist, EU-critical, workingclass political voice.

It created unity within thelabour movement on an issuethat has not been seriouslydiscussed for over twenty years.It deepened a process ofpolitical education that willgrow stronger. It helped to alertworking people to the growingdangers posed by anti-democratic EU institutions andstructures dominated bycorporate power. It gave voice tothose who previously simply didnot have one.

The trade unions and politicalforces in the labour movementnow have the political space toput forward a clear EU-c r i t i c a lagenda and promote theprinciple of popular sovereigntyand put it into practice.

N o 2 E U :r e fl e c t i o n son thecampaign by Brian Dennyand Phil Katz

ava i l a ble free atthe RMT stall